John Kasich against Senate health care plan; says don’t ‘rush’ it

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Sunday he is “against” the Senate Republican leadership health-care bill as written, although he said he is “encouraging” lawmakers to “fix it” and not “rush” into passing the measure this week.

In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Kasich said the GOP bill does not include enough money to provide care for the “mentally ill, the drug-addicted, the chronically ill” who receive health coverage through federal dollars made available by the 2010 health law known as Obamacare.

RELATED: Kasich slams House GOP over health-care bill

Kasich said he does not believe “the bill’s adequate now,” adding “unless it gets fixed … I’m against it.”

“And I’m not against it just because I want to be against it,” Kasich said. “There’s some things in these bill … that are an improvement” over Obamacare.

“So, I’m not saying, just kill the bill,” Kasich said. “Let’s get something that is going to work,” such as “stabilizing all these issues around insurance and coverage, and then get to the heart of the matter, which is the rising costs of health care, frankly, which this bill doesn’t begin to even do.”

House Republicans last month approved a bill aimed at scrapping large sections of Obamacare such as ending in 2020 an expansion of Medicaid – a joint federal and state program dating from 1965 – which allowed Kasich to provide health coverage to more than 700,000 low-income people in Ohio.

The Senate bill modifies the House version by gradually scaling back the federal dollars used to expand Medicaid by 2024, which still eventually would force Ohio to find hundreds of millions of dollars to continue covering those low-income people, which includes a family of four earning as much as $34,000 a year.

Kasich, who cannot seek re-election in 2018, urged Republicans across the country to withstand pressure from organizations supporting President Donald Trump and work to improve the bill.

America First Policies, an independent organization linked to Trump’s campaign advisers, plans to launch a $1 million TV, radio and digital assault against Republican Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, who last week sharply criticized the GOP bill. Heller is running for re-election next year.

“I have been attacked all of my career,” Kasich said. “And the fact is, is that you have got to stand up on your own two feet, explain how you feel about things and be a leader.”

“I don’t think we have enough leadership,” Kasich said. “I think there are too many people that cower in the wings because of partisanship, not just Republicans, Democrats as well.”

“If you try to get a great number of governors, Republican or Democrat, to speak out on this, where are they?,” Kasich said. “All you hear are crickets and chirping, because they’re worried about upsetting their base.”

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